Puppy farm for animal experiments gets greenlight from UK gov

A U.S.-owned firm has been given permission by the UK government to proceed with building a literal "puppy farm" that will breed animals for use in experimentation.

Efforts to block a puppy farm from being built appear to have failed. A planning inspector had previously refused to allow an American company to breed beagles for use in drug tests. The farm is going to be built at Grimston, near Hull, located in East Yorkshire.

The application to build the puppy farm was originally tossed out by Communities Secretary Sir Erik Pickles in January of 2012. Now that Communities Secretary Greg Clark assumed office, he has decided to reverse the previous decision and to give the facility the green light.

The breeding facility has also been opposed by the local council, and has been the target of animal rights groups for some time. The facility won't be the first animal breeding farm in the United Kingdom, as another farm is already breeding animals for experimentation.

The farm will compete with the existing farm, Harlan, located in Cambridgeshire, to supply some of the more than 3,000 dogs used in the UK each year to conduct experiments.

Many of the dogs are used in "vivisection," which refers to performing surgery on animals in order to conduct medical experimentation. PETA claims that over 100 million animals are killed just to be used in dissection classes each year. PETA has slammed the decision to build the puppy farm.

The farm will be built by US firm Marshall BioResources under its subsidiary Yorkshire Evergreen. A single puppy retails for approximately 1,600 pounds.